Colts’ Frank Reich has no regrets on pass-run splits

Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich came under a bit of fire from fans and some media members following the Week 12 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a supposed under-utilization of running back Jonathan Taylor.

After the Bucs made it clear they were going to stack the box against the league’s leading rusher, Reich made the necessary adjustments to attack their defense with Carson Wentz and the passing game. It worked well during the second quarter as the Colts put up 21 points and went into halftime with a 24-14 lead.

The Colts then come out of halftime—still facing loaded a box—and continued to throw. They moved the ball at the same rate as the first half only this time, turnovers were mixed in. Then they went 26 straight plays without a downhill run called, which made some fans and media members frothing at the mouth while calling for Reich’s resignation.

Doug Farrar over at Touchdown Wire wrote a fantastic piece about why we should stop getting mad at coaches for going away from the run when facing the Bucs.

But Reich, in a superb moment of transparency and intellect, explained why he had no regrets with the way the game was called during the third and early fourth quarter.

“I will just close out before I open it up and just make a comment on the run/pass stuff since you guys asked me about it a lot yesterday and kind of as professional courtesy. I’ll just say this, assuming everybody is OK with the first half – I understand when in the second quarter the run/pass ratio was heavy pass and it works, it’s OK, but when it doesn’t work it’s not OK. I understand that, so let me just talk about the second half,” Reich told the media. “We come out, we go right down the field two times and feel good about what we’re calling. There’s 15 first and second-down calls in the third quarter and eight of those 15 plays are directed to Jonathan (Taylor) – three passes and the rest were RPO runs.

“Just really close out by saying this is kind of a philosophical thing and I realize not everybody will agree with this and not everybody will like it, but this is just kind of who we are and who we’re going to continue to be because when you’re a one-back offense and you have to find creative ways to handle all the run blitzes – because we have Jonathan Taylor and the offensive line we have, teams get very creative with run blitzes and in heavy boxes. So, one of the ways to combat that is formationally to do things and another way is RPOs. So, we’re going to continue to not major in RPOs, but it’s going to be a part of what we do. I’ll just give you the numbers on those in the second half. We had six RPOs in the second half that were called runs to Jonathan and it ends up getting thrown and on those plays we averaged seven yards a play. One thing that I think is important to note is, it’s interesting about RPOs – they are throws, but you’re calling the run and if you average seven yards a play on a run, you’re going to be real happy with that. I’m really happy with the productivity of our RPO game. It’s been exceptional and it was exceptional in this game as well. Incomplete, plus 15, plus 11, plus seven, incomplete, plus seven – that’s almost seven yards a play. So, happy with that.”

TLDR: Several of the calls during that 26-play stretch were RPOs for Taylor. However, the Bucs were loading the box pre-snap and thus Wentz would pull and throw. It’s the correct read, especially when the passing game was working so well.

With all that said, Reich admitted they should have forced a downhill run or two against the loaded box—even it meant wasting downs.

“That being said, it’s like Chris (Ballard) and I were talking about, there’s something about the attitude of calling downhill runs that have no other options,” Reich said. “You’ve just got to call it and run it. I understand that that’s a big part of the game and that’s got to be a part of who we are so we’ll continue to mix that in there. There is a time and place for that.”

Maybe the Colts should have tried to get Taylor in space more during those drives. But we also need to give credit to Bucs linebackers Devin White and Lavonte David along with one of the best run-stuffers in Vita Vea. They were flying to the ball while keeping Taylor from breaking tackles, which is a huge part of his game.

There will be some media members and fans who don’t care about situational football and will claim that blindly running into stacked fronts against the best run defense in the league is actually a good idea.

But this game is about adjustments. It’s a chess match at every level. When you don’t have enough blockers for defenders, more often than not you put the offense at a disadvantage.

Taylor is a special back and maybe Reich should have given him one or two downhill runs to see what would happen.

But he doesn’t have any regrets about the way the game was called and given all of the context surrounding the matchups, he shouldn’t have any regrets.

Like Colts Wire on Facebook
Follow Colts Wire on Twitter
Follow Kevin on Twitter (@KevinHickey11)